Cages - Paintings by Sandra Chevrier

Book excerpt: Sandra Chevrier is an illustrator, painter and street artist living and working in Montreal, Canada. By mixing watercolour paintings and trompe l'oeil comic book collage she crafts beautiful, hyper-realistic mixed-media portraits.Sandra, who calls herself a "gaze collector," creates these hyperrealistic paintings of women in a manner that allows for reinterpretation and recontextualization of the superhero mask. By covering these images with a collage of comic book prints, using scenes from Superman and Batman to conceal the faces of these idealized women, Chevrier discovers new "fragile heroes," promoting the idea that vulnerability often underlies heroism. Titled "Cages," these mixed-media works encourage viewers to consider how the modern woman--like these superheroes--might also be surrounded by expectations of effortless perfection.